Brown Stringy Algae?

[puffermike]

I have a question for some people who've dealt with various types of algae.

Nitrates - 5
Calcium - 420
KH - 9
Mag - 1390
Salinity - 1.20
PH- 7.4 at 11am.
Roughly 3500GPH flow in the tank it's about 90G of water volume.

Now I understand that the low PH could be the issue. I know that PH can be easily altered by even the air in my house but this is a tank issue no doubt. My RO/DI water that I had mixing and heated for several days sitting next to the tank reads a different PH of 8.1-8.2. I recently switched from tap water over to RODI water within in the past couple months and had no issues with brown algae until I swapped to RODI. TDS is 0 coming out of the unit. I'm using instant ocean. Same salt I've always been using. I'm getting annoyed with this brown algae seeing as it's starting to grow on my SPS. I siphon it out manually with a small vinyl hose weekly.

I think I might try to aerate the water to raise it naturally. Your advice would be appreciated!

Oh and one more thing my phosphates are sitting at <0.5. I'm going to grab some ChemiPure Elite today seeing as I've been using the normal kind and see if that helps as well.

 

[DianaKay]

If you are talking about this going on in a tank that has been running less than 6 months:
My guess is it has everything to do with natural tank progression.
I had this brown string with a bubble attached algae for at least 3 weeks. I'd say if you feel like you are doing everything right, it will go away in time. Just keep it blown off of your corals & keep up with your water changes.
Call it UTS (ugly tank syndrome) and know that it too shall slowly pass. Hang with patience.
If your talking about a tank more than a year running, maybe someone else can advise you.

 

[DaveK]

Most SW systems have so much circulation that adding aeration does nothing except creat salt creep everywhere. Save yourself the time, effort and money on this one.

If you need more circulation, add some circulation pumps to the system.

ChemiPure Elite is an ok product, but your much better off getting GFO and carbon from a place like BRS.

 

[puffermike]

Hmmm.. I added another power head a week ago and it did nothing for it so far. Its weird that I switched to RODI and this happens. Yet the mix I make reads a good 8.2 PH and my tank is 7.4. Strange... I think raising it will kill off this algae.

The tank is going on 9 months old and it looked better younger haha.

 

[Creekview]

I grow it in my algae scrubber like crazy. There are photos in another thread of my collectors. A scrubber gives the algae an ideal place to grow, other than your tank. All of the pest algae in my DT's have migrated to the scrubber. Great way to export nutrients, too.